Australians Say Home Ownership Means Happiness
A new report shows 70 percent of Australians feel that owning a home contributes to their personal happiness in life.
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Most Australians feel that home ownership is important for their overall happiness, providing not only a sense of financial security but also contributing to their emotional wellbeing. Those are the findings of a research report undertaken by the customer-owned Great Southern Bank.
The research contains insights from almost 2,000 Australians on how they’re feeling about their current living situation. It found homeowners are significantly happier with their homes than renters, and the more equity they have in their homes, the happier they feel. Happiness is highest for mortgage-free homeowners, with 57 percent saying they were ‘very happy’ compared to 45 percent of homeowners with a mortgage and 29 percent of long-term renters.
Megan Keleher, Chief Customer Officer at Great Southern Bank, said: “What this report illustrates is the strong link between home ownership and happiness – in fact 7 out of 10 Australians say home ownership is important to their overall happiness,” Ms Keleher said. “Just 5 percent – or one in 20 – say it is not at all important. And perhaps not surprisingly, happiness with our home increases as we get older, and as we move towards becoming mortgage-free.”
The report found that 51 percent of renters are feeling heavily burdened by their financial commitments compared to 36 percent of homeowners. About 84 percent of long-term renters say they are concerned about current cost-of-living pressures compared to 73 percent of homeowners. And 80 percent are worried about housing affordability compared to 62 percent of owners.
Ms Kelaher said 29 percent of renters and 18 percent of long-term renters were still feeling confident that they could achieve their home ownership dreams. One in two renters said they were hopeful of buying a home to live in within the next three years, however saving a deposit is the key barrier.
“Of course, we acknowledge that the homeownership journey can be difficult and one of the biggest challenges faced by first home buyers is saving a deposit,” said Ms Keleher. “For those buyers who are finding it difficult to save a deposit, there is support available from several government initiatives. For instance, the Federal Government Home Guarantee Scheme’s expanded eligibility criteria is helping more first-time buyers, as well as those who haven’t owned a home for many years.”
One in 10 respondents who had previously planned to buy a home are now holding off, saying they feel deterred by rising property prices (60 percent), the cost of living (60 percent) or rising interest rates (45 percent). New CoreLogic data shows the national home value rose by 8.1 percent in 2023. Meantime, interest rates have risen dramatically since May 2022 from an emergency low of 0.1 percent to 4.35 percent today.
The report also asked respondents how satisfied they were with various elements of their homes, such as style and location.
About 72 percent of baby boomers were happy with their home’s location compared to 61 percent of Gen Xers, 58 percent of millennials and 48 percent of Gen Zs. About 62 percent of baby boomers liked the internal look and feel of their homes versus 51 percent of Gen Xers and 48 percent of both millennials and Gen Zs.
It appears many Australians are living in homes that are too big or small for them, with the size of homes recording some of the lowest satisfaction scores. Just 65 percent of baby boomers are happy with the size of their homes compared to 48 percent of Gen Xers, 42 percent of millennials and 40 percent of Gen Zs.
Rising rates, construction inflation and shrinking investor confidence are pushing Australia deeper into a dangerous housing spiral that monetary policy alone cannot fix.
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Kit Braden, an executive at French beauty empire L’Occitane, has spent every winter for the past 13 years at the stone vacation home.
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A historic Barbados estate with a 300-year-old villa and 11 acres overlooking the Caribbean Sea is now for sale with a guide price of $22.5 million.
The seller is Kit Braden, chairman of the U.K. branch of French beauty empire L’Occitane Group, whose family has spent every winter for the last 13 years at the island property, known as Fustic Estate.
“It’s very much a family house,” Braden said. “We love having a lot of people there. It’s a collection point to keep everyone together.”
The main villa dates to 1712, though it’s been reimagined and expanded substantially over the years.
It spans 13,000 square feet and features seven en suite bedrooms across three wings, as well as expansive verandas, stone courtyards and rows of louvered doors in gay Caribbean pastels.
In the 1970s, when the home was owned by Charles Graves—brother of British poet Robert Graves—it was reimagined by stage designer Oliver Messel, one of the foremost theater designers of the last century. Messel expanded the home, added a lagoon pool with a natural waterfall and other theatrical features, according to Braden.
“The whole place is a little bit magical,” he said.
The home sits about 350 feet above the water, and surrounded by lush gardens that slope towards the water.
“We look down through our garden—which is about 12 acres of tropical gardens and palm trees and wonderful old mahogany trees—onto the Caribbean,” Braden said.
He and his wife first saw the property on New Year’s Eve 2013, during a quick trip from where they were staying in Grenada.
The couple spent an hour walking the perimeter, some of it still untouched jungle, in the pouring rain.
“By the time we got back, I had fallen in love with it,” Braden said.
His wife, however, wasn’t so sure. But in Braden’s telling, a second visit in sunnier weather with two of their children brought her around.
“She had to be talked into that it was a jolly good idea; now she absolutely loves it,” he said.
When they bought the property, the edge that runs along the waterfront was a jungle, so they cleared the ridge and transformed it into gardens.
They also bought an additional sea-level parcel with two beach cottages, giving the property direct access to the water and the town below via a five-minute walk.
The property also has a 15-person staff, a reflecting pond, an outdoor pavilion suitable for yoga and a commercial grade kitchen that can serve more than 100 guests, according to a brochure from Knight Frank, which posted the listing in March. They did not provide further comment.
For Braden, the property is special because of its natural beauty, its proximity to the town of Saint Lucy and its history—which dates way way back to when the island of Barbados was first formed via tectonic activity.
“It was basically tectonic plates that collided about a million years ago so the seabed is the top of the hill,” Braden said. “We’re on coral rock.”
As a result, Fustic Estate includes an extensive network of caves that were likely used by the Arawaks, a Venezuelan fishing tribe that followed the fish to these islands about a thousand years ago.
“If the fish were good they’d camp here,” Braden said. “There’s evidence that they stayed there in those caves, they lived there in good winters.”
Now it’s someone else’s turn to live on the land shared by Arawaks, the plantation owners of 1712, Charles Graves and the Braden brood.
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